Televised games stopped following the 2007 season when TVNZ's television rights were sold to Sky TV. Games were originally shown once a week but due to lack of demand, only playoff games were shown mainly due to Super Rugby, National Rugby League (NRL) and ANZ Championship games clashing with game times and a high interest by the public in those competitions. Highlights and interviews of the Southland Sharks have been shown on Cue TV.

Through the 1970s, games were organised between neighbouring representative teams, or in annual tournaments organised as club or provincial national tournaments. Other competitions were also held during Easter tournaments or in small regional leagues. The New Zealand National Basketball League began in 1982 in response to a need for consistent and quality competition on a semi-professional basis, to match the structure and improvements occurring in Australia. Tall Blacks such as Stan Hill, Dave Edmonds, Glen Denham, Byron Vaetoe, Peter Pokai and Tony Smith starred in the early years of competition. Imported players like Clyde Huntley, Angelo Hill, Frank Smith, Kerry "The Jazzman" Boagni, Willie Burton, Ronnie Joyner, Benny Anthony, Kenny McFadden, Tyrone and Tony Brown added a level of sophistication and style to the Kiwi basketball scene.

The big city teams such as the Auckland Stars, Canterbury Rams and Wellington Saints dominated in early years, but when the Hutt Valley Lakers won 1991 and 1993, the star players began to spread out. The Nelson Giants won their first championship in 1994 and the Stars then became the first team to win three titles in a row from 1995–97. After the Waitakere Rangers, Hutt Valley Lakers and Northland Suns left in the late 1990s, many thought the league would become much weaker but it proved the opposite as only the best New Zealanders and imports were selected due to the small size of the league at the time. The league continued to improve with higher calibre players joining the league. High school standouts, like former North Harbour Kings player Kirk Penney, chose to play in the league until they left to play college basketball.

The ten teams in the New Zealand NBL play 18 regular season fixtures, with each side playing each other once at their home arena and also once away at their opponents' venue. At the end of the regular season, the top ranked team plays the fourth ranked team, and the team which finished second hosts the third ranked team. The winners of these two semi-final matches progress onto the grand final.

In 2003, the NBL signed a deal with TVNZ for TV 2 to become the official "home of hoops." In 2005, games that were televised included a Friday night NBL fixture that was shown at 10:30 pm. In 2006, TV 2 televised the game of the round at 11:30 am on Saturdays. The semi-final and grand final fixtures were also shown live. In addition to this, TV 2 often had live coverage of the Tall Blacks games played in New Zealand.

The New Zealand NBL allows each side to play with two non-New Zealand citizens (imports or restricted players). From 2001 to 2003, however, the league believed that overseas players were detracting from giving New Zealand-born players significant minutes and playing time in the league and as a result, one import only was permitted per side. In the past, the NBL sides have usually relied on Americans to fill their import player positions. In 2004, the trend of using American imports started to change with New Zealand gaining an ANBL side in the Breakers. Many of the NZNBL clubs began to use Australians as their imports, as the ANBL does not run at the same time as the NZNBL.

Since its beginning and to the present day, Auckland has been the benchmark of the NZNBL. They have won the most titles out of any team: 10. Next best is Wellington with 8, Canterbury (4), Waikato (4), Nelson (3), Hutt Valley (2), Southland (2), and in 2006, Hawke's Bay won their first ever NBL title. In 2007, Nelson won their first title since 1998, giving veteran centre Ed Book his first ever NBL championship.